Three Hartford Schools Awarded $460,000 In Grants

HARTFORD — McDonough Expeditionary Learning School plans to use a $200,000 competitive grant toward extending its school day by 30 minutes, city school officials said.

The grant to McDonough, a grade 6 to 8 school on Hillside Avenue that features an Expeditionary Learning academic program, was one of three federal grants totaling $460,000 that the state Department of Education awarded to Hartford neighborhood schools for the coming 2014-15 year.

SAND Elementary on Main Street also intends to lengthen the school day with its $130,000 grant, according to the school system.

And in the Frog Hollow neighborhood, Burns Latino Studies Academy was awarded $130,000 for its community school program and ongoing efforts to improve its climate and culture. Burns is a pre-kindergarten to grade 8 school that has struggled with chronic student absenteeism.

A second year of funding may be offered to Burns, depending on how the initial year turns out, officials said in an announcement last week.

The three competitive grants are part of $6.6 million in federal and state funding directed to more than two dozen public schools across Connecticut that the state has deemed low performing and in need of improvement. Eighty-two schools were eligible for the aid and 47 of them applied.

Superintendent Beth Schiavino-Narvaez said in a statement that the Hartford grants "validate the approaches we have taken to improve student learning and they will help move us one step closer to equalizing the performance among all of our schools."